Black Mirror Season 7’s Black-And-White Romance Is The New ‘San Junipero’ – First Look

If you were to write up a list of the best feel-bad shows in recent memory, Black Mirror would rank in the upper echelons. Because episodes of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian sci-fi anthology tend to come with gut-punching developments, nightmarish visions of future (or, scarily, not-that-future) tech, and denouements that leave you needing a stiff drink come the closing credits. All of which makes it more surprising whenever Brooker and his collaborators deliver something more optimistic or stirring – like fan-favourite episodes ‘San Junipero’ and ‘Hang The DJ’. Now, make way for ‘Hotel Reverie’, a black-and-white episode from the upcoming Season 7 that pays homage to classic Hollywood cinema in a none-more-Black Mirror way.

Directed by Haolu Wang, this one stars Emma Corrin and Issa Rae – the former as 1940s movie star Dorothy Chambers, and the latter as contemporary A-listen Brandy Friday. Rae’s Friday has, through ‘Redream’ technology, been inserted into a simulated world derived from (fictional) Hollywood classic romance ‘Hotel Reverie’, starring Corrin’s Chambers – as struggling film studio Keyworth attempts to use AI technology to boost its ailing business. The episode, Rae tells Empire, feels like “a blend of a bunch of my favourites, like ‘San Junipero’ and ‘Striking Vipers’.” In short: make way for a new emotional Black Mirror classic.

For Corrin, it was all about turning back time nearly 100 years ago. “I was trying to get the very specific sort of rigidity that these [1940s] actresses had,” they tell Empire. “Particularly the way they manoeuvred themselves around objects in the room. I remember Polly [Bennett, movement coach on The Crown, where Corrin played Princess Diana] saying, ‘Imagine you have a really long cape on everywhere you go.’ It completely changes the way you hold yourself.” Meanwhile, Rae was struck by how the episode speaks to the modern-day language of the movie biz. “It just felt extremely... likely,” she says. “Which is the most terrifying thing about watching Black Mirror. I could completely see this happening. Especially in an industry that feels so starved for creativity sometimes.”

The result is the sort of Black Mirror episode that squeezes your heart rather than gleefully crushes it – something of a throughline in the upcoming season. “It’s partly that the world keeps getting more and more horrible, and so the show gets more and more escapist in response,” Brooker tells Empire. “Who would want to just watch nothing but dystopia now, when you can look at it out your window?” But fear not, old school Black Mirror-heads – the show hasn’t gone soft. “It wouldn’t be Black Mirror if there weren’t moments where you go, ‘Oh my fucking God! This is horrible!’,” Brooker assures us. Prepare for system overload.

Read Empire’s full feature on Black Mirror Season 7 and ‘Hotel Reverie’ in the Thunderbolts* issue, on sale now. Order a copy online here. Black Mirror Season 7 is coming soon to Netlix.